Chapter Text
Seeley Booth does not get paid enough for this.
Sure, he gets decent athletics scholarship at the local state school. But merit doesn’t feed empty stomachs, and if Seeley wants to cover the rest of the bill he has to work for it. And even working as many hours as possible on top of being a football star on top of a full course load, he’s barely making enough to make ends meet.
He doesn’t get paid enough for this. Especially during weekend rush hour, when there’s a line practically going out the door and he has to move fast if he wants any hope of getting a tip, and sometimes the girls think it’s cute to flirt with him and he has to act charming and flattered, even though the first few times it happened he was caught so off guard that his wolf daemon had growled and snapped her sharp fangs at them before either of them regained their composure.
People liked to comment on her, too. People liked to talk, period, as a given. But when they see well-built Seeley behind the counter they think, okay, he’s a college kid working for some extra cash, and then they see his huge wolf daemon gliding along the floor beside him like a gray ghost, and they think, oh shit .
Neither he nor Ailbheann think it’s funny, but if they laugh and nod they usually get a bigger tip, so they grit their fangs and bare it.
(God, Seeley hates being forced to do something so against his principles like this. But even above his “be treated like a decent human being” principle is his “make enough money to not starve to death” principle, so he doesn’t have much say in the matter.)
It’s midterms season, so the cafe is even more packed than usual, with students from all of the colleges across the city gathering in one of the best cafe hot spots to cram. So even though the cafe is small enough that it’s normally filled with a small but reliable flow of “usuals”, it’s no surprise when two unfamiliar girls enter the scene. One of them clearly leads the pack, carrying her head held high and her stuff thrown over her shoulder carelessly in a messenger bag. Her canary daemon flits above her black hair, surprisingly boisterous; most bird daemons prefer to settle down neatly on their human’s shoulder and not make a fuss.
(Canary, Seeley thinks. Bird: creativity, expressiveness, freedom. Canary: “in the gold mine” -- feeling trapped in a cage or used by others. One of the annoying types to serve, usually way too flirty and chatty. But she’ll tip nicely enough.)
She’s dragging by the hand someone who, judging by her expression, could either be her best friend or her sworn enemy. Unlike her flashy, showy friend, who’s clearly screaming for attention with every molecule of her being, she’s entirely average in almost every way: short, but not too short; brown, average-length hair swept up in a ponytail; modest jeans and a cardigan, perfectly suited for today’s weather. Her daemon, a small butterfly with iridescent purple and brown wings, hovers by her shoulder.
(Insect: Hard to read, feelings of alienation. Butterfly: lightness, playfulness, transformation, sometimes said to have psychic connections or higher powers of intelligence. In short, not normally the kind of person who looks like she wants to murder her friend for bringing her into a coffee shop of all places.)
“Come on, sweetie, you need to relax. Get your of your head a little bit!” says the first one, with the canary daemon. She flashes a smile a Seeley. “Hi, hon. I’ll have a medium cappuccino with an extra shot of caffeine. And you’ll have…?” She looks at her friend, reaching into her bag and scrambling around for her purse.
“I don’t want coffee, Angela,” says the woman with the butterfly daemon crossly. “I don’t see why you had to pull me out of the dorm for this when I was studying for a very important test!”
Seeley keeps his most pleasant dealing-with-customers smile plastered on his face. “I’ll go make your cappuccino while you decide,” he says. He motions with his hand, and his wolf daemon hops up and puts her paws on the front counter. Ailbheann grins and wags her tail pleasantly at the customers. “Just tell us what you want when you figure it out, okay?”
Angela jumps back a little when she first sees the huge wolf, but then she leans forward and looks her over appraisingly.
“My, aren’t you just dashing.” Seeley makes sure to turn away from them before he grits his teeth and starts to make that cappuccino. He only has thirty minutes left in his shift. He can deal.
He can hear the two women bickering through his daemon’s ears and over the sounds of the coffee machine as it works its magic.
“I should have stayed home.”
“No. Tempe, you spend way too much time cooped up in our room. I refuse to see you throwing away your life like that! At least order a tea and sit with me for ten minutes. Is that too much to ask?”
Typical guilt trip from a flashy canary. The woman with the butterfly daemon sighs and nods to Ailbheann. “One tea,” she says. “I don’t care what flavor.”
“Make it a chamomile,” says Angela.
“Coming right up,” quips Seeley’s wolf daemon. “We’ll get right on it, and I’ll ring you up in the meantime.”
A few minutes later, Seeley hands both women their drinks. “Here you go, ladies. One cappuccino with an extra shot, and one tea.”
“Thanks,” Angela flashes him a huge smile and drops an equally big tip into the tip jar. “Sorry you had to put up with Temperance. She can be kind of a drag sometimes.”
Seeley’s used to people with songbird daemons attempting to establish connections with him by trying to include him in on things. If anything he’s surprised it had taken this long for it to happen. “It’s not a problem.”
Angela smiles again, and grabs both of the drinks before whisking herself and her friend off to one of the corner tables by the back. Seeley watches them go before the next costumer steps up.
“Squints,” says Ailbheann under her breath.
Seeley grunts in agreement.
“Well, he’s cute,” gushes Angela as she takes a seat. Cher lights down on the edge of the table, hopping up and down in agreement.
Temperance sits down across from her. her butterfly daemon settles down next to the canary, politely far enough away to not get trampled. When she doesn’t take her tea (or the bait), Angela sighs and hands her roommate her cup. Temperance takes it and holds it in between her hands. She still has a sour look on her face, like she’ll murder the next man that tries to talk to her.
“Come on, sweetie, relax for five minutes. Live a little!” Her daemon hmphs in agreement, and brushes Temperance’s butterfly daemon with his wing to wake him up. Auster flutters his wings in agitation, but doesn’t move.
“I told you, Ang, I need to study,” says Temperance. She seems to steel herself, then takes a deep breath. “I know I’m not the perfect roommate that you imagined. You’re not my ideal roommate, either. But this is what we’ve got, so we have to make it work.”
Angela frowns. This had nothing to do with the fact that Temperance was an awful roommate, and everything to do with the fact that spending all semester in their dorm room was unhealthy. And also was starting to drive Angela crazy. She was being a helpful intervener! “Tempe, listen--”
“I need to go,” Temperance cuts in. She scoops up her butterfly daemon with one hand and her tea in the other. “Thank you for the tea, Ange. I need to study. I’ll go to the library; you can have the room to yourself if you want.”
Angela admits defeat. As she watches her roommate walk away, her daemon hops forlornly onto her shoulder. “What’d we do wrong?” he asks.
“It’s not us, it’s her,” says Angela, more sternly than she meant to.
As she turns back to her cappuccino -- just because she can’t enjoy it with her friend doesn’t mean it has to go to waste -- she catches the eye of the cute barista as he’s walking out of his shift. His large wolf daemon rolls her eyes. Angela smiles at him, and this time she thinks the smile she gets back is a tiny bit more genuine than the one he gave her before.
Ah, fuck. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Seeley had sat down on his bed for five seconds just so he could change out of his work clothes, and the next thing he knows he’s waking up from an hour-long nap by his roommate barging into the room and he’s and totally, completely out of it.
He grunts and sits up, exchanging a glance with Ailbheann on the bed next to him, who wags her tail in a consoling way and buries her nose under her paws. She’d fallen asleep, too. He must have been pretty out of it; normally he never power naps for more than a few minutes at a time. Midterms plus busy work shifts plus prep for the big game this weekend must have gotten to him. Which is bad, because he really does not have the time to spare for naps right now.
Unfortunately, Seeley’s roommate doesn’t notice the emotional turmoil he’s going through right now and starts talking like he owns the stage. His pudgy orange cat daemon curls around his legs in pride, her tail curled like a question mark. Her purrs are audible even from across the room.
(Cat: Curiosity, mysticism, the otherworld. Condescending and fickle. Lazy, unreliable, and always getting into trouble. Seeley hates people with cat daemons.)
“So you know how I’m doing that independent study with my psych prof?” Lance was saying. He sits down on the bed and crosses one leg over the other, bouncing it with energy. “So anyways, I’m thinking I finally figured out what I want it my study to be about. I want to study relationships that look like they shouldn’t work, but they do. It’s fascinating, don’t you think? When two complete opposite people are forced together and become friends, despite all odds?”
Seeley shares a look with his daemon. “Sure, Sweets.” Despite the fact that they’re roommates, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be on first-name terms with Lance. He’s just too nerdy and weird, while Seeley is, well, himself.
“My prof thought it was a great idea! Now I just have to find some study groups. Do you know of any people that fit the criteria and would be willing?”
He remembers the butterfly and the canary from the cafe earlier. “Nope.” He scoots off the bed and starts rifling through his clothes drawer, his wolf daemon hopping onto the floor with a stretch and a huge yawn. “Listen, pal, I’d love to help you out, but I have to get ready for practice. You get it, don’t you? I’ll see you later.”
He and Ailbheann are out the door and down the hallway before Sweets even has time to say goodbye - or stop his rambling about his new pet project long enough to realize what he was saying at all.
They get their asses kicked at football practice that night. Ailbheann is a force to be reckoned with; she’s the biggest daemon on the team, and her physical prowess is at its peak. Seeley isn’t anything to sneeze at himself. But maybe it’s his nap or maybe it’s a hidden, nagging suspicion that something isn’t right that throws him off his balance. Either way, he’s battered and sore by the end of practice.
“You alright, Seeley?” asks his coach on the way to the locker room. His small falcon daemon flutters over Ailbheann’s back, keening softly in concern.
(Falcon: Freedom, focus, ferocity. Leadership, vision. Always seeking new heights and ambition. A hard coach, one that doesn’t accept anything less than 110%, but a fair one that treats his students as his own.)
“I’m fine,” Seeley brushes him off.
“You didn’t look fine out on the field tonight,” says his coach.
“I’m fine,” he insists. “I’ll be back on my game by this weekend. I promise.”
His coach gives him a look that says he doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t push it. “Alright. Get some rest, Seeley. See you on Saturday.”
“See you,” grunts Seeley. Ailbheann snuffles at their coach’s falcon daemon as she whirls away, back onto the coach’s shoulder, nestled firmly onto the leather shoulder pads that almost everyone with raptor daemons to wear to avoid getting their skin clawed up by their daemon’s sharp claws.
Seeley stands alone in the locker room, leaning against his locker. Midterms are hell. He’s so tired. He really doesn’t get paid enough for this.
“We have a midterm tomorrow we need to study for,” his wolf daemon reminds him.
Seeley grunts. This whole college thing is not panning out the way he thought it would.